triptych-games posts

In May 2009, 3D Realms stopped development of Duke Nukem Forever as it entered into a legal battle with publisher 2K Games. But how close was the long awaited first person shooter from being completed. In a new podcast on the game's official web site. Triptych Games' president David Riegel said, "When 3D Realms shut its doors in May, I would say the game was maybe about 75-80 (percent) compared to what it is today, but it was interesting because it was a kind of an uneven 80 (percent)."

While lots of the game's content was in the build, much of it was still missing. Riegel said, "Most of the characters didn't exist. NPC behavior didn't really exist, like no head tracking or eye tracking, no lip syncing, none of that. No music, no ending: there was a planned ending but it wasn't really there."

Triptych Games, formed in July 2009 by former 3D Realms members, started working on the game before the legal issues were resolved and the game was brought under Gearbox Software's supervision.

So how did Duke Nukem Forever come back to life? As it turned out development of the game never stopped. Kotaku reports that after 3D Realms laid off the development team behind the long awaited first person shooter in May 2009, several members of that team continued to work on the game from their homes.

In the middle of this underground game development, Gearbox Software head man Randy Pitchford (an ex-3D Realms team member himself) heard about it and then was contacted by 3D Realms' CEO Scott Miller to see if Gearbox could take over the game's development. Pitchford stated, " I was in a spot that, if I took a bet and got in there and put myself in the line of fire in the middle of this thing, I knew that I could bring all these pieces together and that I could save Duke."

From the looks of things, that's exactly what Gearbox is doing and if all goes well we should see the game that took over 13 years to make finally ship to stores sometime in 2011. Will it be worth the long wait? That remains to be seen.

It looks like Gearbox Software isn't the only developer involved in the making of Duke Nukem Forever. The game's official web site has gone live and shows that two more teams, along with Gearbox and 3D Realms, are involved in the making of the long awaited first person shooter.

One is Piranha Games, a veteran game developer in Vancouver that got lots of attention in 2009 when it announced plans to make a new MechWarrior game (there been no updates on that project since the initial announcement, by the way). The other developer is Triptych Games, a new developer based in Gearbox's home town of Plano Texas and made up mostly of former 3D Realms employees. There's no word on what these two teams will be responsible for in the making of Duke Nukem Forever. In the meantime the site has a link that will let people sign up to join Gearbox's focus testing. That means you might be picked to come to the developer's offices to play test the game.